


I Think I'm In Love With You...

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 12:30:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11148456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: ...and I'm terrified.McCree goes missing, and it's all because of a bottle of whiskey, too many emotions, and some absent flowers.





	I Think I'm In Love With You...

**Author's Note:**

> a prompt from my tumblr, to incorporate the sentence "I think I'm in love with you and I'm terrified" into a Mchanzo ficlet

In his rough, calloused hands, Jesse McCree held an elegantly curved bottle, filled with a soft, pink liqueur. It was why he had come here. It was a plan that had been germinating in his mind for days now, warming him right from the core of his chest every time he'd thought about it, until finally he'd had a free day to get off the Watchpoint and make the long, hot trek down to the city. However, while the intention had been clear, not once had Jesse really given it much thought. It was just what he had wanted to do, and Jesse was good at doing what he wanted. It was only now, staring at the bottle, did it reveal the nebulous complexities hidden within its pink bubbles.

Now he did think about it. And the more he thought about it, the more he could feel his heart pound and sweat gather on his palms. The thoughts wouldn't _stop_ coming and the future gaped at him like a ravenous, fanged maw. The hopelessness of this situation, the terror of this situation, had snuck up on him, leapt past all his defenses, and had him firmly in its grasp – he hadn't even realized how dangerously close to this edge he'd been running, until it had suddenly made itself obvious.

All the good thoughts, all the hopeful outcomes of his plan were disappearing like the little popping bubbles in the pink drink and cold, stark reality hit him hard in the chest.

He put the bottle down.

Well, it had often been said that Jesse McCree was a fool. At least he had caught himself this time.

He went, instead, to a shelf filled with decidedly brown bottles. He bought one of these instead.

-

It had been several hours and no one had the faintest idea where McCree had disappeared to. Winston had called for a meeting to discuss a couple budding ops that might be worth Overwatch looking into, and despite repeated announcements and a quick search of the base, one seat at the meeting table had remained conspicuously absent. Morrison had simply rolled his eyes and shaken his head and advised Winston to carry on with the meeting anyway, this was simply the irresponsible, flighty nature of Jesse McCree. Tracer, though less nasty about it, also seemed to suspect that McCree had just wandered off to spend what they had all thought was a free day doing something outside the base. Ana had remained strangely quiet, thoughtful, and it did nothing to settle the strange sense of concern twisting in Hanzo's gut. Because where in the world would Jesse go? To sit among the trees? Jesse made it no secret that he was not a “forest-y” sort of person – cities or deserts were what pleased him and he was happy to leave the “leaf admiration” for folks like Zenyatta and Genji.

It was only after more time passed and there was still no sign of McCree, that people began to get a little more concerned.

And so here was Hanzo, on what was supposed to be his day off, trying to find space to park one of Overwatch's jeeps on the main street of Gibraltar, simply because it was the last reasonable place that they hadn't checked. At first it seemed pointless – though not overwhelmingly big, Gibraltar was still more than large enough for one man to disappear off the map – and it may very well have been the case, had not Jesse McCree, in a sense, found Hanzo first. After wandering aimless around the streets of Gibraltar, Hanzo had eventually been confronted by a man who, with a rather wry expression, asked him if he had lost a cowboy.

“How... did you know?” asked Hanzo, warily.

The man gave his clothing a very pointed look before saying, “Lucky guess.”

Hanzo bristled at the snide comment, but before he could say anything the man put a hand on his shoulder, spun him around, and pointed down a different street, given him very explicit directions. It was like this, that Hanzo eventually found Jesse McCree sitting against the wall of a store. Hanzo glanced upwards. It was a liquor store. He glanced down. There was a bench approximately five steps away from where Jesse was slumped. He hadn't even had the composure to manage that. Hanzo sighed. It was no secret that Jesse had a habit of imbibing more than he should from time to time (especially not with the way Angela, Ana, and Lena would subtly attempt to keep an eye on him when the drinks came out after a bad mission). He had been doing so _well_ though, and yet all signs were pointing towards this being a Problem-with-a-capital-P.

The nearly empty bottle in Jesse's hand didn't help bolster Hanzo's estimation of the situation. Wearily, he approached the felled cowboy; he wasn't sure when Jesse had become him problem exactly, but he knew right down to his soles that this was his responsibility to fix. Or at least patch up as well as he could.

(Possibly it had started being his responsibility when their nosy colleagues had figured out that he and Jesse had developed a concerning habit of falling into bed with each other.)

( _Probably, though he shrank away from this thought, it had started being his responsibility when he had started_ caring _. He was a damn fool._ )

“Hey,” he said, nudging Jesse with his foot.

It took a moment, and then Jesse glanced blearily upwards, using the lip of the bottle to push his hat back.

“Howdy,” he said. He sounded miserable. Or at least drunk. They were often interchangeable; Jesse could be a very melancholic drunk, an unsettling counterpoint to his usually upbeat attitude.

Hanzo felt a flicker of worry in his chest – what had brought Jesse all the way down from the Rock, just to get drunk on some liquor? Heck, it was practically Watchpoint tradition to raid Reinhardt's stash when emergency alcohol rations were needed, so what drive for secrecy or privacy had made Jesse go so far out of his way? It was at least an hour's walk down the mountain, and Jesse hadn't had access to any of the Watchpoint's vehicles, which were kept under lock and key unless assigned to you by Winston. That meant whatever had compelld him to come down here was serious.

And yet everything had been going so _well_ and that was perhaps the most frustrating thing. Hanzo _didn't_ know what was wrong, and he didn't know how to fix it. The last time something like this happen Hanzo had at least known to expect it before it had even happened – Jesse had been put in command of their last mission and it had gone pear-shaped when Talon had anticipated their ambush and gotten the jump on them. Lena's chronal accelerator had taken a bad hit, and that had slowed her down enough to receive a sniper's shot to her shoulder blades. It had been dicey for a while, but though the mission hadn't been completed they had all pulled out safely, with Angela and Winston working together to get Lena back on her feet. It hadn't mattered, of course, how much everyone had assured Jesse that he'd done nothing wrong, that he couldn't have expected this, that sometimes that was just how missions went; Jesse had brushed the concern off, insisted it was _fine_ , he was just glad that Lena was okay, and had then promptly gotten sloshed that evening. Hanzo had been there though, from the first bottle cracked open, until Jesse had been drunk enough for Hanzo to pry his last one from his hands and put him to bed. This though... this was worrying, if for no reason other than the fact that it didn't appear to have been triggered by _anything_.

“Gotcha this,” murmured Jesse, pressing the nearly empty bottle to Hanzo with enough misjudged force that it slopped over the lip of the bottle.

Hanzo took it tentatively, mostly because he wanted it out of Jesse's hands and, more importantly, away from his mouth. He gave the bottle a cursory glance. Whiskey. Not surprising. Jesse had terrible taste in alcohol.

“...So kind,” said Hanzo, dryly. “And I see you have tested it first, so considerate. Come now, up, you have had enough. Time to return.”

He tucked the bottle into a pouch on his waist, and then turned back to Jesse with the intention of hauling him back to his feet. It took him by surprise though to find Jesse staring up at him, with the most heart-breakingly miserable expression that Hanzo had ever seen.

“Y'don't like it,” said Jesse. “ _Knew_ it, stupid...”

Hanzo blinked. “...I didn't say that.”

This time, it wasn't only Jesse's expression that fell, but his whole head, dropping against his chest. To Hanzo's horror, he swore he could hear a sniffling coming from where Jesse's face was half-buried in his serape.

“Made a mess of it,” slurred Jesse.

This was... not the sort of thing Hanzo was made for. Emotions were big and complicated and frankly rather intimidating things that Hanzo preferred to skirt around the edges of. Normally Jesse seemed more than happy to follow him in that careful dance around their feelings. This, of course, was not “normally”, and a drunk Jesse was hard enough to deal with when Hanzo knew what the problem was. Here, he was left adrift. Now, more than ever, he wished he'd accepted Genji's suggestion that he join his brother in his search for McCree rather than splitting off to cover more ground – his brother had always been better at feeling things.

“The only thing you made a mess of is yourself,” said Hanzo, and then, realizing what the sounded like, amended with a placating, “I appreciate your gift very much, Jesse. But I'd like even more to get you back to the Watchpoint and make sure you're well.”

“Got the wrong one,” Jesse continued, as if Hanzo hadn't spoken. “Meant to get the flower bullshit one. Got scared. Stupid.”

“The... flower one?” said Hanzo, baffled. “What scared you?” Perhaps that, at least, could provide answers.

When Jesse only snuffled to himself, Hanzo sighed and sat right down on the walk, tugging Jesse down against him so that his face was pressed against Hanzo's shoulder rather than his cloak. With vague memories from decades ago, of comforting Genji when he'd turned up in Hanzo's bed, shaken with nightmares, Hanzo kept one arm gripped tightly around Jesse's shoulder and, shifting the hat, ran his fingers through his hair.

“You don't need to be afraid, I'm here,” he said, trying not to sound as awkward as he felt.

“That's what I'm afraid of,” murmured Jesse.

Hanzo's heart stopped. Only with the practiced control of a sniper, did he force his chest to gently exhale and inhale once more. Jesse was... afraid of him. Alright. Alright. At least now... at least now he knew the problem.

_Why_. After everything why... _how_... how could Jesse be afraid of him? At the beginning, yes, it was understandable surely, back then he had only been Genji's killer to McCree, but now, after everything that had happened, everything Hanzo had tried to prove to Overwatch and to himself... did he truly deserve such a condemnation?

Probably.

This shouldn't take him by surprise, and he hated himself that it did, but he still felt stricken. It was surprisingly... _distressingly_ easy to lower your guard around Jesse McCree, and perhaps this was what came of it. He longed to ask _why_ , what had he done, what had he said, what had he not said, but now, when Jesse was drunk and vulnerable, was not the time, so he let the words sit and rot on his tongue. Instead, Hanzo simply kept breathing and stroking Jesse's hair.

He should have brought Genji with him.

“Would you... like me to leave? I can call one of the others to...”

Jesse recoiled like Hanzo had shot him. He stared at Hanzo with a wet, bleary face, expression distraught and twisted, framed by mussed hair.

“ _No_ ,” cried Jesse, fists bunched in Hanzo's robe. “N-no, I'm so sorry, darlin, I'm _so_...”

“Jesse, wait, _stop_ ,” Hanzo said desperately. He didn't know how to stop the tears. Without really thinking about it, his hands rose to cup Jesse's face, thumbs brushing at the wet tracks down his cheeks as if that could force the tears away.

“I wanted to get you the flower one,” Jesse insisted, gesturing so desperately and clumsily at the liquor store that he nearly smacked Hanzo in the face. “For the holiday thing. 'Cause... 'cause I thought, 'Hanzo'd like that', but I didn't. I wanted to. Swear I did. But then... Then all this. An' _you...”_

Hanzo stared at the liquor store, as if willing it to shed some sort of light on this situation, when he caught sight of something through the window, arranged neatly on one of the shelves. There was a display set up of a sparkling wine. It was light pink, and he could just make out the word _SAKURA_ on it.

He had been talking with Genji about how _hanami_ , the cherry blossom viewing festival. The recollection of it was sharp and sudden, an old conversation that had faded from his mind not long after he'd had it. He had mentioned to Genji that it would surely be starting soon. They'd been talking about how they both missed the cherry blossom trees back home, how spring felt strange without the air being full of delicate pink blooms there to welcome it. Yes, he could recall that Jesse had been there, but he hadn't thought he'd been listening, never mind that he'd think to do anything about it. It had been an idle conversation.

His heart felt hot and tight in his throat. He didn't know what he was feeling, only that he felt a lot of it.

“Jesse...”

“Thought you'd like it,” Jesse said. “Know what it's like t'be homesick an' thought...”

“I would have – I do. Thank you.”

“Didn't even buy it. Chickened out,” said Jesse, letting his head thump back against Hanzo's shoulder. “Thought, hey, I'll buy this for Han, no biggie. But it is a biggie. It is. Big. 'Cause it's you. Why'd I come all the way down here for a stupid drink for some guy? Why'd I do it, Han?”

“I...” said Hanzo. He stared fixedly at the sidewalk, not quite able to bring himself to look at Jesse, to think about what he was saying.

Jesse kept talking though. “I think I’m in love with you and I’m terrified,” he whispered hoarsely.

Genji chose that moment to show up with Winston.

“There you two are. You guys okay?” Genji called, jumping from the passenger seat of the jeep the two of them had taken down the mountain shortly after Hanzo had.

Hanzo wasn't sure if it was Jesse's very evidently inebriated state or his own horrified, gaping expression that convinced Genji that things were definitely _not_ okay, but he was next to them in an instance, lifting Jesse up into his arms like a child. Hanzo felt the loss of Jesse's weight, his warmth, his _presence_ so accutely he was surprised the feeling didn't swallow him whole. Instead he stood, and clung to Jesse's hat.

“You're drunk, cowboy,” he heard Genji tell Jesse in a jovial tone. “Angela's gonna kick your ass so hard when we get you back.”

A groan came from Jesse as he was packed away into the vehicle.

“You coming back with us?” Winston asked, leaning out of the driver's side window.

“I... That is...” He considered sitting next to Jesse, still drunk and handsy, in the backseat of a jeep with the weight of what had just been said sitting between them.

Neither of them had ever brought love into the equation before. It always just been... something. And it had been more than enough, more than Hanzo expected or probably deserved. He had never quite wanted to risk more. But now that the feeling had been named, it was suffocating.

Terrifying.

“I should drive the other jeep back,” he mumbled.

“Mm,” said Winston, giving him a look that seemed just a little too knowing. “Alright then.”

“See you back at the Point, brother,” Genji called as the jeep pulled away.

Hanzo did an about-face turn and marched directly back into the liquor store.

-

Jesse was _very_ hungover.

His mouth felt like something had gone to the toilet in it, he was nauseous, and none of it had been helped by the fact that Angela was a strong believer that a lecture about one's health was best delivered when even _light_ seemed too loud.

He did _not_ feel good.

But he could also accept that, just maybe, he deserved it.

Okay, he absolutely deserved it. He had made an ass of himself and he knew it. The previous day came back to him in patchy little clips, each one more horrifying to consider than the last. It said something that the least embarrassing part had been when he may or may not have thrown up on Genji. At least that had happened before and both of them were broadly used to it, if not entirely thrilled about it.

What had never happened before, was him confessing the helpless, desperate love he felt for Hanzo Shimada. While completely drunk out of his mind and crying into said man's shoulder.

Oh god. Maybe if he asked Mei nicely, she could arrange to have him frozen for the next fifty years or so, until this all blew over.

And this was, of course, when there was a soft knock of his bedroom door (one that rebounded like sledgehammers in his head) that moments later opened to reveal Hanzo.

Jesse _was not_ ready for this, but apparently this was ready for him. All he could do was run with it and pray it didn't completely ruin things between him and Hanzo. Maybe if he was lucky it wouldn't even get brought up – Hanzo had seemed happy with their arrangement before and maybe... maybe things could stay the way they were. It wasn't like he and Hanzo weren't both experts at ignoring feelings that got in the way of things.

“Look...” he started, because he felt like he should say _something_.

“Jesse...” said Hanzo at the same time.

Both stopped, both fumbled, both insisted the other go first. Finally, when the impasse couldn't stretch on any longer, Hanzo fidgeted with the paper bag in his hands and said, “How are you feeling?”

“Like an incontinent cat fell asleep in my mouth,” said Jesse with a weak smile. “You? I hear I sent y'all on a merry goose chase. Sorry 'bout that.”

Hanzo fidgeted more.

“It was no problem. I'm glad you're alright. I... what do you remember, from yesterday?”

Jesse shrugged with desperate nonchalance. “Oh, nothin' much. Remember getting miserably drunk in the middle of the day, and somethin' about throwing up your brother. Apologize to him for me, will ya?”

Hanzo gave Jesse a weak smile. “After living with him through his teenaged years, I can't help but feel that that is just desserts. No, I don't mean... about that.”

“Ah. Right. Well, I remember... I remember that too. But look, everything I said, we can just forget that, yeah? I got drunk, got stupid, ran my mouth, you know how I get...”

Very carefully, Hanzo put down the paper bag he had been holding, and drew out a bottle of pink sparkling wine. It was placed on the little table beside Jesse's bed with a decisive _clink_. It was a small, fragile noise, very much like the feelings both men were trying to work out. It seemed appropriate. It also seemed very brave, which was a strange thing to think about a bottle of wine, when these were two people who routinely through themselves into firefights. But brave it was.

“I... am not very good at this. But I would prefer not to forget it,” Hanzo admitted.

 


End file.
